The apartment was dark, except for the streetlights from the window overlooking Haight.

He called out. “Lucy?”

He switched on the overhead light. The studio apartment was just as he remembered. Nothing looked disturbed. The room smelled of pine cleaner, and most of the clutter from the floor was gone. He saw a magenta dress stretched neatly across Lucy’s bed, and next to it was a matching pair of two-inch heels. That was what she’d planned to wear to Alembic, but she never put it on.

Frost spotted Lucy’s purse on the kitchen table. When he checked it, he found her wallet inside and her apartment keys. He felt a pounding in his head, but he pushed it aside to concentrate on what was in front of him. This was no time for emotion. Work the case.

He remembered their last conversation.

What are you doing now?

Taking out the garbage.

She’d had her phone with her, but he didn’t see her phone inside the apartment. She never came back. He took her purse and locked the door behind him as he left. He took the steps back to the ground floor and followed the hallway to a locked door at the back of the building. Outside, he found himself in a narrow alley.

A streetlight halfway down the block cast a dim glow. The cold wind blew into his face. He saw a black garbage bag hanging down the side of a trash bin ten feet away. Debris littered the pavement near his shoes. The pages of an old copy of Cosmopolitan magazine flapped in the breeze, and Frost bent down and picked it up.

He checked the mailing label. The magazine was addressed to Brynn Lansing.

Frost slammed his fist against the stone wall of the apartment building so hard that he thought he broke a bone. He knew exactly what had happened.

The Night Bird had taken her.

“Luuuucy. Luuuucy.”

Lucy heard the voice calling her back to the bridge, but she didn’t want to go. Wherever she was now, she could simply drift along in dreams. Frost was there, and they were kissing. She could taste him on her lips as if it were real. They were in a park, alone on the green grass, and the sun beat down, warming them. She smelled honeysuckle and heard the rumble of ocean waves.

“Luuuucy.”

She didn’t want to go back, but the voice was irresistible. It chased away her dreams. The fog of her memory cleared, and she knew what to expect next. The music. When the music began, she went to the bridge. As much as she tried to hold it back, as much as she wanted to stay away, the music carried her, like a hawk snatching a bird out of the sky.

The voice taunted her. “The ground, the ground, it’s so far down.”